Appeal No. 2006-1429
Application No. 10/437,995
as Eddie Bauer to teach or suggest layering according to supply chain (e.g.
manufacturers, distributors, retailers etc.), as recited in claim 2.
In response, on page 13 of the answer, the examiner states:
[A]ppellant is not claiming the limitation of catalog services for more
than one business entities. Eddie Bauer teaches or suggests layering
responses to data requests (page 40, 43, Eddie Bauer teaches to support
naming conventions associate with colors) according to supply chain layer
(catalog category).
We disagree with the examiner’s reasoning. While we concur with the examiner
that Eddie Bauer teaches layering, in that as a user clicks on an item, an additional layer
is presented. This is not what is claimed. Claim 2 includes the limitation “wherein the
response to the data requested is layered based upon supply chain layer.” As is apparent
from appellants’ specification, the supply chain refers to the chain of entities involved in
supplying the goods, e.g. manufacturers, distributors and retailers. See for example
discussion of the background of the art on page 1 of appellants’ specification and the
discussion on pages 7 and 8 of appellants’ specification. We do not find any teaching in
Eddie Bauer which discusses the supply chain for the product, rather Eddie Bauer
appears to be concerned with only the retailer. As we do not find that Eddie Bauer
discusses the supply chain, we do not find that it teaches or suggest that the response to a
data request is layered based upon the supply chain layer. Accordingly, we will not
sustain the examiner’s rejection of claim 2.
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